The Fire This time: A New Generation Speaks About Race

Fascinating and comforting as well as being a fresh and contemporary set of perspectives on race today.

The title of this collection is taken from James Baldwin’s noted 1963 essay collection The Fire Next Time, and editor Jesmyn Ward offers a contemporary look at race through eighteen pieces (including poetry and essay). It includes works by Ward (Sing, Unburied, Sing), Isabel Wilkerson (The Warmth of Other Sons), Kevin Young (Bunk), Daniel Jose Older (Shadowshaper), and Edwidge Danticat (Breath, Eyes, Memory). Works explore the ramifications of racial violence, the black identity, conversations with children, and trying to understand the past.

One of the essays that has stuck with me is Ward’s “Cracking the Code” which discusses her experiences on receiving the results of a heritage DNA test and finding her genetic make up to be considerably less African than fit her identity as an African-American woman. She comments, “For a few days after I received my results, I looked in the mirror and didn’t know how to understand myself.”

The collection is fascinating and comforting as well as being a fresh and contemporary set of perspectives on race today in America. Fans of Ta-nehisi Coates, Teju Cole, or Dr. Michael Eric Dyson should take note.